Return 2: The Heart
Tropes featured in this episode of Alan Wake II:
- Because Destiny Says So: Saga gets the idea to chase Nightingale to Cauldron Lake when she finds a manuscript page telling her that she should. The fact that it hints at more answers down the line must have been pretty enticing, too.
- Card-Carrying Villain: On their way to Cauldron Lake, Saga lampshades how the Cult of the Tree calling themselves a cult is highly unusual.
- Cat Scare: When she first investigates the general store, before any danger is apparent, a deer jumps up and scampers out of the store. Only a few steps closer to the back of the store, a deer-masked cultist bursts out.
- Detectives Follow Footprints: Saga finds and follows footprints from Nightingale, but they quickly end at the dead tree.
- Dynamic Entry: In the abandoned general store, Saga approaches a doorway leading to Nightingale's heart from the other room... only for an ax-bearing cultist to come crashing through the wall and attack Saga in the first proper combat encounter.
- I Need a Freaking Drink: Steven, the FBC technician assigned to repeatedly fix one of their monitoring outposts declines Ilmo's offer for some of his branded Bright Falls coffee, but takes him up on a follow-up offer of trying the local beer brew (which Ilmo also owns).
- Internal Reveal: Alex tells Saga the reason why Nightingale had come to Bright Falls in the first place; to chase down Alan.
- Kitschy Local Commercial:
- On the way out of the police station, you can find one of the Koskela Ad videos — an ad for their wilderness tours called "Adventure Tours" — in a breakroom. The whole thing reeks of Stylistic Suck; Jaakko gives a flat, deadpan performance, the bear is a poorly made cardboard prop that uses stock audio for bear noises, and they boast about their own coffee brand (and the magazine that voted their coffee the best — their own) after Ilmo "defeats" the bear by punching it. They even boast that they have found a work-around by the government's restrictions of the local wilderness via bolt-cutters.
- If you go into the Oh Deer Diner, you'll find another Koskela Ad — a commercial for Ahma Beer — where they call people who drink wine "assholes" while only "cool guys" drink beer.
- Primitive Clubs: Nightingale rips off a large chunk of tree to use as an impromptu club during his boss fight.
- Sawed-Off Shotgun: A double-barreled, sawed-off shotgun is locked away in the back of the abandoned general store. Solving the puzzle of the padlock's code allows Saga to take it for herself as a second weapon.
- Title Drop: The title of the episode is said by Saga as she recites the rhyme to open the Overlap.Saga: The wave crashed on the far side of the mirror. I brought you the heart, witch. Show me the terror.
- Tornado Move: Early in his boss fight, Nightingale stands in the middle of the large clearing he is fighting Saga in and summons up a whirlwind to drive Saga into the winding depths of the Overlap.
- Unnaturally Looping Location: Saga quickly realizes the Overlap acts like this, a small, distorted patch of reality which loops back to its beginning at a specific point (in this case, the massive dead tree).
- Wham Episode: Alan Wake is finally free from the Dark Place.
